The Spiritual Significance of Weaving / Masculine & Feminine in Balance
The Spiritual Significance of Weaving / Masculine & Feminine in Balance: 14 minutes
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
- Ilarion speaks about the spiritual significance of weaving in terms of Unity consciousness. How each one of us required to be part of the whole. It is interesting and significant that English doesn't have a word (or words) that reflect this. Many other cultures have concepts of what Thich Nhat Hanh calls inter-being. In Unangan culture, the word for You, Aang Waan, means My Other Self. In Nguni Bantu, the word Ubuntu means I am because we are. The Filipino word Kapwa, while translated as neighbor, really means Recognizing the Other as Myself. How does your sense of Self change if you consider yourself not an island (a separate Self), but part of a weaving (inter-being)?
AWARENESS PRACTICE
Read these instructions first, and then try it. Once you've tried it, journal about it, or document or reflect on it in a creative way. There is a wisdom teaching that says that anything we treat as Other is actually a part of ourselves that we refuse to know. What feels Other to you? Is it people of different races? Genders? Sexual orientations? Animals? Plants? With each category of "Other" take a moment and ask yourself, what if that is actually part of me?
Maya Angelou reminds us that Terence (the comic poet) says Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto, "I am human. Nothing human is alien to me.". What is the lesson for us, about ourselves, in any thing that we experience as Other? This is an invitation to lean into that growth edge.
